State Lawmakers Brace For Possible Federal Cuts To Medicaid
“This is it. This is absolutely it. This is the line,” said
Chapman was among nearly a dozen people who spoke Wednesday to an
Established in 1965 alongside Medicare, the federally funded health insurance program for seniors, Medicaid has traditionally targeted lower-income pregnant women, children, seniors, parents, and people with disabilities. In
However, with passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Medicaid eligibility was expanded to include working-age adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Approximately 770,000 people in that category are covered by Illinois Medicaid and the federal government pays 90% of the cost for that expansion group.
Currently, according to the
All told, according to the state comptroller’s office,
At issue was a budget resolution that recently passed the Republicancontrolled
Because Medicaid makes up a large part of all the programs the
“There’s no way they can cut that much out of the federal budget without touching Medicaid, because Medicaid is such a substantial portion of the discretionary funds that they have access to,” Rep.
Whitehorn noted that the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act resulted in cutting the state’s uninsured rate in half and reducing the amount of uncompensated care delivered in
“Federal cuts would mean we have to limit ser- vices or eligibility,” she told the committee. “And we don’t have the money as a state to make up the difference.”
“And make no mistake, there would be no hospital Medicaid program without hospital provider taxes,” he said.
Last month, Gov. JB Pritzker laid out a
Rep.
“So I’ll just close with my request to the minority spokesmen and the minority members of this committee to come back in a week to share with this entire committee those letters and those emails and those texts in discussion with us about the things they have done to make sure that the
“And so this, I think, is performative,” said Rep.
Moeller argued the hearing was more than a stage show, noting that
“This hearing this morning is far more than performative,” she said. “We are going to be heading into our budget cycle, our budget making process, with huge uncertainty hanging over our heads. What happens on
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the
Immigrant families scramble as state health insurance for some noncitizens faces the axe in Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget plan
Social Security Administration faces job cuts, office closures under Trump
Advisor News
Annuity News
Life Insurance News
Property and Casualty News